Top Ten: The Best Worst Games of the Decade

With the end of the decade comes time for reflection: A cause for contemplation on how far we’ve come, and deliberation on its most impactful moments. For folk invested in the games industry, it’s around this time where many get to posting their personal “best games of the decade” lists, and attempt to rank the releases that managed to stick with them during these past ten years. Obviously, I think this trend is all well and fine — a fun little exercise in racking your brain and recalling your favorite titles. Even I ended up getting into the spirit of things, and posted my own list on Twitter, for whatever it’s worth. At the same time though, I feel like I can do more to help ring in the 2020s, while keeping with the spirit of this here website of mine.

And so it goes: On this list, I’ll be compiling my top ten favorite “bad” games released in the past decade! Which is to say, we’ll be paying homage to ten titles which received overwhelmingly negative critical reception, but which I maintain hold some merit — or at least provide ironic entertainment value. Call it a collection of “the best of the worst,” if you will. Now, I should also note that this list [mostly] avoids releases which lacked retail distribution / came from independent creators; as I’m not looking to punch down at amateur developers, who might still be trying to figure out the trade or otherwise establish themselves. I made basically one exception to this principle within the list, but I like to think that most readers will agree it’s well-deserved.

The past decade has marked something of a turning point for bad games, where bad business practice has become a front and center point of condemnation. As major publishers continue to churn out titles with ballooning budgets and more egregious microtransactions – taxing overworked studios on ever-shortening deadlines – the measure of a bad game can often come down to circumstances outside the developers control. As such, so many of the more reviled releases in recent years have been more depressing than outright disastrous — more disappointing than dire. When it sometimes feels like the fun is missing from bad games, the titles on this list can hopefully remind us that the magic can still happen: When a developer’s ambitions reach either extreme end of the scale, their budgets don’t quite align with their scopes, and the necessary know-how simply isn’t there.

Honorable Mention: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (Square Enix / IO Interactive, 2010)

I write this title up as an honorable mention here, as I’m not entirely comfortable designating it a “bad” game in the first place? Its Metacritic averages rate as fairly middling, and I feel like much of its negative reputation comes as result of guilt by an indirect sort of association — what with it being a sequel to a release that was mired in much review controversy. If you move past those points, the primary complaints you’ll hear levied against the game are that it’s a clunky-playing, abruptly-ending, mean-spirited game with little more than cynicism at its core. And to all those criticisms I say, “That’s sort of the point though, innit?”

Kane & Lynch 2 is perhaps the most honest shooter on the market today. You can keep the railroaded moralism of your Spec Ops: The Line, and submit yourself to the doom and gloom of The Last of Us as you so please: While those games may claim to “deconstruct” the trappings of their inherently violent genre, they simply don’t hold a candle to the unrepentant ugliness of Dog Days and its scumbag protagonists. Where some games may pause to muse on the emptiness of killing as career, Kane and Lynch force you to swallow that bitter pill with every pixel-blurred casualty. In doing so, the game will present you with situations and scenarios that are just about as uncomfortable as the mainstream end of the medium allows for — including implications of rape, graphic depictions of torture, and the wanton deaths of innocent bystanders.

It’s certainly not a game for everyone, and I can’t blame those unable to stomach it. But for those who can manage — those who might worry or contemplate on how violent games may have left them desensitized to crime and violence? Kane & Lynch 2 should hopefully serve to wake you up from that delusion, with a shock to the system you won’t soon forget. And best of all? You can bring a friend along in co-op to share in your ennui!

#10. The Slaughtering Grounds (Digital Homicide Studios / ‘Imminent Uprising’, 2014)

The Slaughtering Grounds Steam banner.

Sometimes, a game’s context can’t help but contribute to the evaluation process. In the case of The Slaughtering Grounds, and all the bad karma rightfully delivered back to its developers in the infamous Digital Homicide Studios, it’s impossible to play the game now without also contemplating the series of events it set in motion. For some, the schadenfreude that comes with knowing what fate ultimately befell the Romine Brothers eclipses any entertainment value derived from actually playing the game itself. But we cannot forget that there is a video game at the core of this story, and that there is entertainment to be had in it… Almost wholly “ironic” entertainment, granted, but entertainment nonetheless.

Between its utilization of nothing but premade assets and inability to present a single original conceit – trademarks of so many entries to the “asset flip” scene – The Slaughtering Grounds is additionally reprehensible for its atrocious interface, and failure to understand the most basic rules of the first-person perspective. Entirely weightless movement and shooting are accompanied by equally weightless waves of zombies, who slide across the ground stuck in canned animations in their mechanical pursuit of you. Level design which feels entirely untouched by human sculpting serves to frustrate your sense of direction, as different stages provide you with either over-abundances or absolute droughts of resources. Death may be accompanied by a voiceover claiming “Game Over,” but you can immediately respawn and continue gameplay with zero penalty or consequence. If this game were any more half-baked, you’d be liable to catch salmonella from it.

With this bewilderment comes bemusement — a laughter at the game’s expense that I just couldn’t help. Given most any other game by most any other developer, you might start to feel sorry for them at this stage. But understanding the copy-paste nature of the game’s development, and listening to its creators challenging every criticism of it; it only serves to push the situation over the edge, to the point where any sympathy you may have for the creators evaporates. With Digital Homicide’s delusions fully on display, every questionable design decision is cemented as absolutely contemptible, and you’ll soon feel free to laugh heartily at their expense. A bad game by bad people can sometimes make for a good time.

#9. Battle: Los Angeles (Konami / Saber Interactive, 2011)

Battle: Los Angeles Steam banner.

A Konami-published first-person shooter created to tie into an utterly forgettable Sony Pictures film; Battle: Los Angeles demonstrates one of the most bare minimum efforts at producing a licensed title, seemingly entirely devoid of passion or soul on the part of anyone involved. From the word go, to roughly forty-five minutes later as the game is already reaching its conclusion, B:LA accomplishes little more than ticking off the boxes on its corporate-written checklist — including some of the gaudiest in-game promotion ever seen, in service of a separate Sony Pictures property (2011’s ill-advised reboot of The Green Hornet). With an in-game arsenal consisting of a whole three firearms, a roster of enemies numbering less than a half-dozen varieties, and production values generally on-par with the sort of fake video game you’d see featured in a schlocky late 2000s crime drama; the whole package has “rush-job” written all over it, and manages to emblemize everything that consumers had come to loathe about movie license tie-ins. I honestly believe it may well have even been the tipping point in the history of that particular release model — the moment where games publishers and movie production companies both came to realize that the practice was close to running its course.

Yet here I am, talking about it on a list of games I actually recommend checking out for yourself. And why? Because it’s hilarious, that’s why. The major highlight that will likely fascinate most players are the cutscenes: Consisting of straight-up SWF-file Flash animations – though presenting little in the way of actual animation – featuring crude cartoon likenesses of some of the film’s starring cast, rough concept art repurposed as production assets, voices provided by tired programmers performers in an echoey room, as accompanied by cartoon speech bubbles with Comic Sans font. Sony could’ve [and probably should’ve] provided brief snippets from the movie to fill the role of these animated interludes, but instead we get to thank them for giving so little to the team within Saber Interactive tasked with developing their tie-in title. Moving into the actual gameplay, you may take pleasure from the busted physics and pathetic cinematic set pieces — breaking up the monotony of the some of the flimsiest shooting mechanics this side of… well, the previous entry on this list, I reckon.

Battle: Los Angeles is a funny bad game which, I must admit, takes a particular perspective to fully appreciate and laugh at. You have to be somewhat tuned in to the nuances of better FPS design in order to understand what exactly B:LA gets wrong, and also able to have a laugh at a game which manages to miss every single mark. When the actual gameplay is as much a slog as is presented here, it’s less about trying to find ironic enjoyment in the clunkiness of the mechanics, and more about trying to put yourself in the headspace of one of the developers — where you can plot out every paint-by-numbers design beat, and figure out for yourself how things went so wrong. For someone like me who makes a hobby of learning from bad game design, Battle: Los Angeles makes for a compelling case study.

UPDATE (10-22-2021): We’ve since gone and covered Battle: Los Angeles as the subject of its own dedicated article, for those interested in alien-shooting action!

#8. WWE 2K20 (2K Sports / Visual Concepts, 2019)

WWE 2K20 cover art.

There was a temptation to write in the past several years’ lot of WWE 2K games as a singular entry here, so as to speak to their lack of significant evolution and a progressively over-taxed game engine. At the same time, I’d have likely had to note that two distinct audiences exist around the game; with one group genuinely finding entertainment in the product as presented, and the other simply seeing the gameplay as means to other ends — a venue for other endeavors, including the showcasing of extreme glitches and the trading of absolutely ridiculous create-a-wrestlers. And so, I’d ultimately have to pose the question as to whether or not the WWE 2K games are truly “bad,” if they still consistently managed to rate as average and appeal to a general audience? Surely, it would have made for a deeply introspective entry to the list, and inspired much soul-searching in all those who might have read it.

But when I got down to it, I came to the decision that WWE 2K20 exists in a class all its own, and deserves its due as a single contender. While it continues in the grand tradition of not [positively] iterating on its core gameplay, it manages to boast straight downgrades in so many other categories — none the least of which includes the cast of absolutely horrendous-looking wrestler renders, in a franchise already known for missing the likeness mark in some grotesque ways. Perhaps more concerningly though, the game launched in a nearly unplayable state, with myriad game-crashing bugs and outright busted functionalities. On the other hand, this does also open the game up to more of the “fun” sorts of glitches that a contingent of players come to the 2K games hoping for, for the purposes of recording and sharing in amusing compilation videos and animated GIFs. For many, the singular appeal of these WWE games are legitimately the physics-defying and body horror-invoking bugs lurking within, and the challenge that comes with figuring out how to replicate them.

For me, the stand-out feature in 2K20 is the ‘MyCareer Story’ campaign; providing consistently cringe-worthy dialogue, catatonically-unenthused wrestler voice acting, and a storyline so absurd as to make 80’s kayfabe seem grounded by comparison. It represents the ridiculous direction I hope these games continue to go in… assuming these games continue getting made at all. Between the tortured development of this entry and its ultimate failure in terms of sales numbers, one has to wonder if a “2K21” is even on the table at this current stage? If it turns out there is, it’s likely that the budget will be further cut, according to former 2K staff.^[1] While I’m sure some are eager to hear that revelation and to dream of what fresh hell it may bring, I can’t help but point out here that it’s probably a bummer of a situation for all the developers involved, as well as for the audience who look forward to these games for their proper fix of wrestling simulation. Of course, for those of us who find our joy in spotting trainwrecks, WWE 2K20 certainly delivers.

#7. 007 Legends (Activision / Eurocom, 2012)

007 Legends PS3 cover.

James Bond’s stint at Activision (following an unceremonious split from Electronic Arts) came to an end early this decade, towards the latter quarter of 2012. His swan song came in the form of 007 Legends: A release which continued in the “Call of Duty-fication” of the games series that had begun roughly four years prior, with their release of Quantum of Solace running on that ‘IW Engine’ (IW serving as as abbreviation for Infinity Ward). From there – though the engine may have changed – the underlying structure for the remainder of Activision’s entries followed closely in that mold, culminating with 007 Legends fully embracing the “set piece schlock” shooter formula at the expense of functional stealth mechanics and true sense of Bondian flair… because obviously, those have always been such prevalent features in previous Bond games? Why, who can forget the beloved ‘Night Watch’ stage from The World is Not Enough, which has always been praised for its out-of-nowhere forcing of stealth mechanics? And clearly, there should be a reasonable expectation from these entirely action-driven video games to nail the true essence and charm of Bond: His dry witticisms and sex appeal. Eyup, it was with 007 Legends that these qualities had finally failed to be properly represented, and not a moment earlier than that.

But seriously: Critics who claim that Legends serves as any sort of real deviation or downgrade from the established Bond game formula are, frankly, talking out of their asses. The formula here is the same as it ever was, if not slightly improved in some aspects (including some gimmicky little bits of character progression and weapon upgrading). Naturally, the most major shake-up / novelty presented here is the adaptation of several stories from Bond films past; including modern-day interpretations of Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Moonraker, License to Kill, and… Die Another Day, for some reason?** Oh, and there was also some DLC released encompassing a few story beats from Skyfall, which would’ve still been in theaters come the game’s original release. But obviously, the main attraction here is seeing how the classic Bond films – driven by distinct portrayals of Bond by previous actors – are reinvisioned with a Daniel Craig-styled 007 in mind.

For me, that novelty alone made the whole romp worth playing through, in the interest of seeing how iconic scenes and villains would be reshaped to fit this new mould. And while the end results of that endeavor are decidedly uneven, the concept still fascinates me as a whole. It’s fanservice taken to its most impractical extreme, and I love the game for it. Oh, and all the shooting is totally passable, too — credit to the engine previously used in GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, which critics seemed to like just fine a year earlier. 007 Legends represents a case where I just can’t manage to fully understand why it was received so lukewarmly in the first place? I get that shooter fatigue had set in for many at the time, but picking Legends as the scapegoat for it just doesn’t strike me as fair. It’s certainly not particularly innovative (mechanically speaking), and its level design may not be masterstroke, but it’s still an altogether serviceable FPS driven by a compelling gimmick.

Just one disclaimer I’m compelled to mention here: The PC version of 007 Legends is absolutely, unequivocally broken, due to a completely botched control implementation. Effectively, mouse control was programmed to operate in the same way as a virtual joystick, thereby rendering aiming a barely-controllable mess that swings from rock stiff to wildly loose with a single gesture. And seeing as this version of the game somehow doesn’t support controllers (?!), the whole game is practically unplayable for it. It’s probably just as well that the game is no longer listed on Steam at this point.

** Actually, the reason for it is quite logical: It represents the only Brosnan Bond film that had not previously been adapted as a video game. And so it makes sense that Eurocom and Activision would want to wrap up that loose end with a tidy little bow here.

#6. Rambo: The Video Game (Reef Entertainment / Teyon, 2014)

Rambo The Video Game Windows cover.

Sometimes, I feel entirely alone in championing particular games: My Drake of the 99 Dragons fan club might as well still be a party of one, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde still doesn’t get the due I think it deserves, and you can wish me good luck in trying to convince anyone to play Castlevania Judgment with me. Y’all should know that I’ve got even more apparently “controversial” opinions than all those, which I’m still holding close to my chest for now… but I suppose there’s no harm in letting one more loose before year’s end. In the face of seemingly all critical and consumer consensus, I am apparently the single person who liked 2014’s Rambo The Video Game.

You can largely blame it on me being a sucker for rail shooters, sure. And in that department, I do contend that Rambo does its best to incorporate a number of modern design iterations: Adding character progression and weapon unlocks, dynamic cover available on a screen-by-screen basis, gimmick missions revolving around stealth and placing non-lethal shots. Unfortunately, this also includes a copious number of QTEs, but these are at least somewhat redeemed by some positively goofy animations attached to them, including deaths so sudden for poor ol’ Rambo that you can’t help but chuckle a bit. Matters aren’t helped by Rambo’s head model not playing particularly well with animations, to the point where any attempt at conveying any other expression than his default “stoic” look results in unsettlingly odd contortions.

The presentation is what truly puts Rambo The Video Game over the edge: Between all the voice acting recorded at intentionally low quality in a misguided attempt to match the acoustics of sound bytes ripped from the movies themselves, the inability to secure actor likenesses other than Stallone’s leading to some truly questionable recreations of the iconic film scenes, and just a general lack of resources allocated towards the game’s visual effects and assets. You can be sure that the team at Teyon S.A. did the best with what they had — which clearly wasn’t much, and didn’t go a long way. But by god, did they still try their damndest to turn in a shooter to honor the legacy of the films it draws its content from. At the very least, it still brings more cinematic merit to the table than Rambo: Last Blood. So come for the collection of bizarre cutscenes, and stay for some honestly solid gameplay.

#5. Call of Juarez: The Cartel (Ubisoft / Techland, 2011)

Call of Juarez: The Cartel cover art.

I’ve had quite the change of heart with Call of Juarez: The Cartel over the course of the past nine years. At first, I have to admit to resenting it for moving away from the western aesthetic that had defined the prior two entries in the franchise, which had drawn me to them and got me invested in the first place. Then, on a first playthrough – played in single player, mind you – I could only focus on how much a disservice it paid to the legacy of its predecessors: With shooting that felt like a straight downgrade, intolerable driving sections, and so much jank in the presentation department that I wasn’t capable of appreciating at the time. And so, I was forced to watch as the cowboy games I had so enjoyed devolved into a sub-par modern day cop drama.

Time passed. I grew up some, and my perceptions of the world around me were elucidated on. A day had come where I was in a better place to receive a story about three corrupt cops doing corrupt shit, and to respect a game bold enough to explore that motif in depth. Furthermore, I was more willing to laugh at the utterly slap-dash elements of the presentation, and to get a kick out of the broken scripting and busted mechanics. But perhaps most importantly: I had a chance to play through the game with a friend, and to experience the game the way it was meant to be played. From this new perspective, I was able to experience the novel multiplayer hooks intended to sow distrust and enmity among players, and to better appreciate the thematic core of the narrative. Plus, I now had a friend with me to laugh at all the absolutely busted parts of the game. And laugh we did, well into the night.

The Cartel’s efforts and ambitions are so strangely allocated when you get down to it. The shooting gameplay is as bog standard as it comes at its core, and frustrated by some truly half-assed design decisions. It lacks any semblance of polish — as if it was the aspect Techland most wanted to rush and get out the door, so that they could move on to more “important” matters. And so, your attention is drawn to the narrative, where the attempt to tell a compelling story still winds up marred by truly hideous visuals and consistently mistimed voiceovers. You have to dig through some deep layers of incompetence and sort out many of the developers’ intentions for yourself, in order to fully appreciate what the writers were going for here. It’s probably not even fully worth the work in doing so, as the grand pay-off deals in reveals of already obvious character motives; meant to be discovered only by the players embodying each of the three protagonists, with details delivered privately by cell phone exposition and solo splits from the rest of the group during certain levels.

Despite these misplaced efforts and half-baked execution, I still can’t help but respect what Techland attempted here. Even when the gameplay is at its most tedious, there’s still something that compels you to see each segment through, and to see the game reach its crescendo. The pill is far easier to swallow with a co-op buddy or two on board, though I strongly advise playing along with the opportunities the game affords you to undermine your supposed partners. If you find yourselves truly at each others’ throats come the grand finale, that’s the game having done its job right… in some sense, I suppose. Call of Juarez: The Cartel is best approached with an open mind, and a sense of humor for the inevitable jank that will soon ensue.

#4. The Quiet Man (Square Enix / Human Head Studios, 2018)

The Quiet Man cover art.

To sum up The Quiet Man in a single word? “Misguided.” In following the story of a deaf protagonist by means of beat ‘em up gameplay, you’re made to hear the world through his ears. Which is to say, dialogue and environment sound are all inaudible, only conveyed auditorily through pulsing and reverberations. A novel conceit to be sure, and one which should immerse you in your playable character and his plight. Only one slight problem, though: The game consists of roughly 70% dialogue-heavy cutscenes, wherein all that dialogue goes entirely unsubtitled; despite your character being proficient in both sign language and lip-reading, to where they can clearly understand what is said in conversation, and where you as a player should be allowed to be filled in.** But nope: In order to “unlock” that privilege, you first need to complete the whole three hour’s worth of game while left completely in the dark, before unlocking a gameplay mode which enables you to hear all the spoken dialogue / read subtitles on second playthrough. Holy hell, I cannot even begin to describe here how stupid all this is. Y’all are gonna have to wait on a full article for that take, folks.

Oh, and by the way? That 30% of The Quiet Man that consists of actual gameplay is rough as guts, featuring fighting mechanics so basic as to allow for practically mindless play. You’ll spend most of your time in control beating up on a small rotation of generic gang members almost entirely devoid of AI, as hilariously lifeless in-engine cutscenes serve to transition you from one combat arena to the next. A true treat that comes with this are moments where the game attempts to “seamlessly” fade between live action footage and the plastic-coated characters as rendered in polygon. In returning to the gameplay, you’ll find yourself stymied by constrictive camera angles on cluttered stages, where both you and enemies will struggle to navigate them. It’s obvious that the game wants you to get through the bare-bones combat as quickly as possible so it can return to its surreal cinematics, but it shoots itself in the foot by presenting the mechanics and designing environments in such clunky fashion as to slow proceedings down to a crawl. Truly baffling design all around, here.

The Quiet Man has to be seen to be believed, but played for yourself in order to fully appreciate just how confounding it all is. Square Enix and Human Head Studios’ high ambitions for some sort of wholly immersive movie-esque experience fall flatly on their face, in such spectacular fashion as to utterly fascinate. That the game was released with little marketing or fanfare – other than coverage provided by an utterly baffled gaming press – goes to show that even its producers eventually realized how much of a mess they had created, and hoped that it would simply be released and received as quietly as the experience it delivers. Of course, things didn’t go entirely to plan in that sense, and the result is a title which has gone on to be heralded as a must-play for bad game enthusiasts. I can only second that statement for the time being, before I begin the process of trying to describe the whole of the game through my usual format.

** As a matter of fact, the whole game is bizarrely committed to not presenting you with text, even in attempting to navigate settings menus conveyed entirely through abstract neon signage. It’s as if the developers didn’t realize that deaf folk are still capable of learning to read.

#3. Raven’s Cry (TopWare Interactive / Reality Pump, 2015)

Raven’s Cry Windows cover.

From the creators of the once-infamously clunky Two Worlds comes a game which looks back on that legacy, lets loose a laugh from the belly, before proclaiming to the world “Ye ain’t seen nothin’ yet, mateys.” And so, here we have a game which was so clearly unfinished before its launch – so hastily assembled and feature-incomplete – that it eventually got pulled from distribution and replaced by a newly-titled version of the game in some sorry attempt to distance itself from the original release. For the record: This new and improved version of the game is still a half-finished mess of a game. But if you were lucky enough to experience the release in its original state (or “resourceful” enough to track down a download for it now), you would be lucky enough to have played Raven’s Cry in its purest form — the undistilled disaster as it once was, as it set to part sad fools from their hard-earned coin.

Yes, releasing Raven’s Cry in a borderline-unplayable state for a price of $54.99 was fairly despicable practice by TopWare and Reality Pump. At the same time, it provides a gameplay experience like no other: With every seam fully exposed, and no polish to distract from the sheer ugliness of the whole adventure. Thrusting players into open sea piracy and cutthroat escapades; you’ll divide your time between downright unfair naval battles, messily-implemented sword and flintlock combat, and half-baked RPG mechanics fit to make you wonder what kind of game the developers had even intended to make. With development having begun in 2011 and an originally intended 2013 release (where it would’ve been made to compete with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag), even two years of additional delay and development could not begin to help the game take some semblance of shape. But alas.

In its re-released format as Vendetta: Curse of Raven’s Cry, what you’ll effectively get is a [slightly] more functional version of the original release, free of some of the more crippling bugs and patching up some of the more blatant holes in the presentation and design. But at its core, it’s still the same Raven’s Cry that disappointed enthusiasts and repulsed critics earlier that same year of release, and still worth playing as a thoroughly raw role-playing experience… “Raw” in the sense that it’s still a game barely held together by duct tape and a prayer, mind you. If you’ve ever wanted to see a video game laid completely bare, or happen to need a pirate fix in the absolute worst way, Raven’s Cry will do the job cheap and dirty.

#2. Deadly Premonition (Ignition Entertainment / Access Games, 2010)

Deadly Premonition Xbox 360 cover.

There’s no denying that Deadly Premonition – especially its original Xbox 360 release – is a hot mess of obtuse design, nightmarish micromanagement, and combat at its most clunky. At the same time, it might well be the most publicly beloved entry on this list — adored mostly for its charming cast of characters, and a genuinely compelling narrative that hard turns between goofiness and tragedy on a dime. I’ve seen it heralded as “Twin Peaks: The Video Game” (as I’ve similarly heard said of Mizzurna Falls), and I admit it’s difficult to argue with that comparison. Of course, there’s also so much more Deadly Premonition does to set itself apart from its main inspiration, as director Hidetaka “SWERY” Suehiro brings his seemingly uncompromised creative vision to fruition.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll curse the game’s mechanics out loud as your car runs out of gas 10 minutes into a commute (and 30 minutes’ jog from civilization) across the town of Greenvale’s needlessly large expanse. A compilation of half-baked minigames and side missions serve to occupy time between the baffling narrative beats, and to help immerse you in the town’s oddball culture — so long as you know exactly how to manage your precious ticking time and in what suggested order you should attempt to approach these diversions from. Third-person shooting which cribs its notes from the Resident Evil 4 school manage to prove far more tedious than one can possibly imagine, with melee mechanics that further frustrate by way of paper-thin weapon durability. Detailing these sorts of archaic design decisions may not sound like me trying to make a case for the game any more, but I assure you: The flaws all add up to something greater than the sum of its misfit parts, and serve their own twisted form of charm past a certain point. Or at least I’ve managed to convince myself of as much at this point.

Due to its eventual reception as a cult classic, a Director’s Cut edition of the game would eventually be released; bringing the game to platforms outside of the Xbox 360, revamping the controls and difficulty, and tightening up at least some of the more outright broken / unsporting conditions placed on players. Do note that the PC release of said Director’s Cut suffers from a slew of its own technical issues and limitations, but can be modded to an extent in order to bring it up to a serviceable level of play. Alternatively, you may be tempted to just watch someone else play their through the game. While I can’t fault anyone who may find the game’s more obtuse mechanics imposing, and where I understand that some folk generally just prefer to experience bad games vicariously, I do believe that Deadly Premonition is at least worth trying out for yourself first — even if only for the first hour, to see if you can stomach its eccentricities. If you can manage it,  you’ll find genuine accomplishment in progressing the game, and feel yourself truly connecting with the town and its residents. There’s a beauty ^[♫] in all the minutiae that takes first-hand experience to fully appreciate… So says Mr. Stewart.

If you should happen to be interested in hearing some more about Deadly Premonition and its… quirks? You might consider giving the inaugural episode of our podcast a listen, to hear friend of the site Sardoose describe it as his favorite bad game.

#1. Ride to Hell: Retribution (Deep Silver / Eutechnyx, 2013)

Ride to Hell: Retribution Windows cover.

All said and done, the 2010s were a frankly miserable decade to live through. Between the hellscape of modern politics, the rise of some particularly toxic factions in our culture, and capitalism wreaking its havoc on the planet; it’s enough to make a person wanna travel back in time, to more innocent days and simpler living. Back to a time when bands still played music, burgers cost less than 20¢, and mind-altering drugs were at their most innocuous. Clearly, we need to get back to the late 1960s, where everything was perfect and everyone was happy. But until modern technology can teleport us back to those idyllic days, the best it can provide for us is a video game set in the year 1969 — a meticulously-crafted simulation of life as an outlaw biker in those heady days. Because if you’re gonna live out a late ‘60s America fantasy, you may as well do it as a disillusioned ‘Nam vet with a gun in hand and score to settle.

Enter Ride to Hell: Retribution: My personal pick for the best bad game of the decade — of all time, maybe. Calling the release “half-finished” does not begin to describe the gaps presented in its narrative and the issues apparent in its gameplay. Calling it “glitchy” can’t begin to cover the volume of broken scripting, out-of-bounds experiences, and bugs which would befuddle even the most seasoned of quality assurance testers. And yet, there’s roughly a full game’s worth of content here to play through, and still plenty of flourish on top of that. There’s an engrossing narrative, with distinct characters and shocking twists. There’s variety, progression, and all sorts of mechanical layers demonstrating grand ambitions and love for the craft of game development. It’s all busted up worse than a motorcycle flown off the side of a mountain, but you can still enjoy yourself a decidedly bumpy ride on the back of what’s left of it.

What’s most compelling about Ride to Hell is its absolute earnestness. It is the end result of five years work by a passionate team, who overcame cancellations and sweeping design changes in order to bring some semblance of their vision to life. What the end product may lack in… let’s say “polish,” it more than makes up for with its absolute love for the setting and story it presents. It’s a game which wears its heart on its sleeve, and which proves eager to share and showcase every last scrap of the work that got put into it — including the parts that are still blatantly unfinished. It’s playable proof that even incomplete works can still be appreciated for the efforts invested in them, and that there’s a journey to be found in trying to fill in those blanks for yourself. In the case of Ride to Hell, that journey may well be a clunky one – marked with frequent laughter, constant confoundment, and occasional frustration – but certainly still a journey worth taking.

I can only emphatically recommend that you actually try and play Ride to Hell: Retribution for yourself, rather than just watching a playthrough or attempting to absorb it through reviews. It’s a game which begs to be experienced first-hand, and which you should draw your own personal conclusions from. In doing so, your may see your outlook on the whole medium of video games change, or find yourself otherwise transformed by the experience. I swear there’s magic in this goofy game — a beauty that deserves appreciation. If you think about it, perhaps we’re all a bit like Jake Conway: Protagonists in our own stories, facing overwhelming odds in a world that doesn’t make sense. Or maybe we’re more like Eutechnyx; doing our best to share our passion and experience, with the limited means afforded to us within an unforgiving system. At the very least, we can agree as a people that we’re all looking for ways to pass time in our daily lives, and that video games make for a fine means of doing so. If you should choose to give it the time, playing Ride to Hell is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on you.

Addendum

With this list carrying the conceit of consisting of my own personal picks, it’s limited in that I only felt fair including games which I actually had a chance to play. As such, you may have found it missing some titles whose reputations would precede them, and which I may well have saw fit to include if I had the first-hand experience. Some of these potentially worthwhile titles (which I still intend to eventually check out) include:

• Amy
• Mass Effect: Andromeda
• Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
• Umbrella Corps
• Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta
• Vroom in the Night Sky
• A slew of Kinect-required games (Hulk Hogan’s Main Event and Star Wars Kinect come to mind)

With all that being said: I should also point out that most all the games mentioned in this article are due their own articles some day. I do hope y’all continue to stick around to eventually read them. This goofy little site got its start roughly four years ago – toward the beginning of 2016 – and it’s been a fun ride thus far. We’ll see if I ever get a chance to write a follow-up to this list, covering another ten years’ worth of games so bad that they’re good. Until that day comes, I’ll do my best to continue addressing them on the individual basis that readers have come to expect from me; with my over-long essays, accompanied by laundry lists of sources.

If you can, you should make a New Year’s resolution to play more bad games. It’s worked wonders for me.

[1] Lambert, Jeremy. “Former ‘WWE SmackDown vs. Raw’ Writer Says […]” Fightful. December 2, 2019. Web.